Knowing that someone is going to call you, thinking of someone then shortly running into them, dreaming of events that happen in reality, smelling the scent of your grandmother in random places, meeting someone and having a strange feeling about them that is later validated—these are all examples of psychic senses at work.

The main psychic senses are clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairsentience (clear feeling), clairaudience (clear hearing), claircognizance (clear knowing), clairscent (clear smelling), clairgustance (clear tasting), and clairtangency (clear touching). We were each masters of these psychic senses when we first came into this world, when we were open to the unseen and trusted our intuition. Eventually, however, these senses take the backseat, and are not given the time or attention necessary for further development. With practice, we can learn to open ourselves up, once again, to these extraordinary senses and tap deeply into the spiritual world.

How to Develop Your Psychic Abilities

To develop our psychic senses, we must first understand that we already possess them. They are inherently within us—we merely forgot about them. The idea is not to attain them, but to reactivate them, to open them back up. Our psychic senses are deeply connected to our right brain, the part that is intuitive, creative, and empathic. The key is to quiet our left brain, the part that is sequential, analytical, and mathematical. When we overthink, we override our inner knowing.

The most effective method for strengthening our psychic senses is meditation. Not only is meditation a proven stress reliever, but regular practice can also increase sensitivity to energy through the different clair-senses. And energy is, after all, the language of spirit. Journaling our thoughts, emotions, and dreams can also help us to rediscover our psychic potential. When we spend time with ourselves in this very deep and vulnerable way, we empower our intuitive and emotional self to communicate with us—and be heard.

Externally, spending time with nature raises our vibration, and to connect with spirit, psychics must maintain a high vibrational state. A walking meditation through the forest trains our psychic senses to pay attention to the subtle sounds and the energies of the trees, plants, and animals. Crystals also vibrate at very high frequencies, and certain crystals are used by psychics to strengthen their psychic senses and channel energy to open up to the spirit world. Holding a crystal, carrying it, or meditating or sleeping with it can help attune us to spiritual energies.

As the idea of psychic senses continues to gain more acceptance, practitioners will continue to find new ways to develop them.

Who and What Can Help You Develop Your Psychic Abilities

Crystals: Work with crystals to help channel energy. During meditation, hold a high vibration crystal (clear, violet, indigo, light colors) like clear quartz, amethyst, selenite, or lapis lazuli in the left receiving hand, and a grounding crystal (orange, red, black, dark colors) like black tourmaline, smoky quartz, jasper, ruby in the right hand. They will act as conductors as we allow the flow of spirit and Earth energy in the body.

Guided Meditations: There are wonderful meditations available on various music/video apps that guide us in visualizing opening the chakras and tapping into energy. Use them. Personalizing meditation makes it that much more powerful.

Breathing Meditations: Air is the life force. Most people breathe through their chest when they should be breathing through their diaphragm. Breathing meditations help us to center ourselves and feel deeper into the body.

Hemisync and Binaural Meditations: These sound waves activate specific functions in the brain. They require headphones as they alternate beats and help listeners achieve a meditative trance state.

Spirit Assistance: As mentioned before, always ask for protection before opening up. Even if we don't see or feel our spirit helpers, asking is important. There are meditations and methods to meet our spirit helpers. As we begin to build a relationship with these spirit beings, we will come to find which of them are able to help with psychic development, protection, love, career, etc.

History of Psychics

Psychics have been consulted throughout history—and have gone by many names. Ancient Egyptians looked to seers who communicated to their deities. Native Americans and other indigenous peoples honored (and continue to honor) shamans, people connected with earth and animal spirits. Ancient Greek leaders consulted the oracles of Delphi, who received messages from the god Apollo. Ancient China developed many divinatory practices including the I Ching, face reading, and palmistry. And in the Bible, Jesus—who some could argue had enhanced psychic senses—spoke directly to God.

Spirit communication became widely banned and stigmatized during the spread of Christianity in the 13th century; religious leaders claimed that psychics were in commune with the devil. Indigenous beliefs and practices were cast out by colonists in the 16th century, and many cultures were forced to follow institutionalized religion. However, certain figures also rose to worldwide popularity—one being Nostradamus who famously made some seriously sizable predictions.

Spiritualism grew in the mid-19th century. Throughout this era, followers held public demonstrations where psychics connected with the spirit world, delivering messages to the audience, messages that confirmed their loved one's presence in the afterlife and held valuable information to help the querent. These days, psychics are allowed to practice openly, and it is not uncommon that your friends, family member, or colleague consults with a psychic regularly. Famous psychics in popular culture include John Henry, Theresa Caputo, Sylvia Brown, and James Van Praagh. They appear on talk shows, write best-selling books, make appearances, and perform public readings to packed auditoriums.

Psychics have long been dismissed by the scientific community, but their popularity has only grown. How do you explain the unexplainable? How do you quantify something so ancient? How do you prove that you have a soul? Can you measure the effect of a prayer, or the weight of trust, or the power of faith? With increasing focus on quantum mechanics, it's likely psychic phenomena will be proven, at some point, as fact—but science hasn't caught up just yet.